India's Living Green Atlas

S. Natesh's Iconic Trees of India gathers India's most iconic trees into a single, sprawling narrative—part travelogue, part science, part cultural memory— offering readers a stirring reminder of how deeply our landscapes shape who we are

- YAUVANIKA CHOPRA

When one is among the trees, as Mary Oliver wrote, it is a reminder to never hurry through the world - but to walk slowly, and bow often. S. Natesh's beautiful book embodies the spirit of this poetry and roots it within scholarly acumen to produce an extraordinary canopy of arboreal history.

A lifelong student of botany, Professor Natesh began campus tree walks at the National Institute of Immunology while working there as a consultant. His increasing curiosity about other remarkable trees in India was countered by a surprising scarcity of existing information. Thus, despite being "on the wrong side of 65, without a supporting team or grant", he embarked upon a seven-year journey to visit every potential iconic tree in the country. Leeches, muscle cramps, and theft did not deter him: "Despite all this, I would not dream of trading any part of the sheer thrill and excitement of finding an age-wizened arborescent centurion or gentle ligneous giant."

Nordic mythology has the Yggdrasil, and the oldest trees in the world are named after the Biblical Methuselah and Greek Prometheus. In India, there are sacred trees in every cityalongside ongoing tension between biodiversity and urbanisation.

The Introduction in the first section of the book notes that developed countries can afford to value their trees, while others sacrifice natural heritage at the altar of 'progress. In a land of indigenous biophilia, returning to public involvement could help revive our natural affinity for green surroundings. Scientific documentation is necessary too: radiocarbon dating is uncommon in India, but dendrochronology informs us about the intertwined networks between human and environment.